Forum Administrator YaBB Administrator Posts: 88	Mid-year progress reports for Planning Grants 09/23/08 at 14:00:34   Please add mid year reports to this thread by clicking reply above.   Thanks!
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stewlisa YaBB Newbies Posts: 1

Boscobel Mid-Year Progress Report Reply #1 - 01/07/09 at 17:31:07   Mid-Year Progress Report     We have established an Early Childhood council made up of representatives from Head Start, Birth to 3, Daycare providers, Special Education Teachers, Regular Education Teachers, Speech Teachers, and Parents. During the Early Childhood council meeting, each representative described the early childhood population served by their organization, the type of services provided, and their area of concern. It was the consensus of the E.C. council that Boscobel would greatly benefit from a 4k program.   We developed an e-mail contact list, which is used routinely for updates.     We have visited 1 school so far. Representatives from daycare providers, parents, ECSPE and regular ed visited Blair –Taylor Early Learning Center. They collected information about the Head Start/EC/4K collaborative approach.   We will be presenting to our school board about our progress so far with this project.   We still need to have training in LINKS or PACT . We have not had any information available about training in our area yet.

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Charlene_Lynum YaBB Newbies Posts: 3

Altoona School District Mid-Year Report Reply #2 - 01/19/09 at 14:49:08   Altoona School District Mid-Year Report   The grant generated a great deal of interest in improving services and increasing access and   options for preschool-aged children with disabilities. District staff capitalized on this opportunity by revitalizing the Altoona Children’s Council, and involving community preschool and child care sites in these discussions of options. In addition, the Western Regional Collaboration Coach facilitated a framework appraisal process with all interested stakeholders, which provided cohesion and momentum for planning. Committees are currently addressing the logistics for providing an array of service delivery options beginning in the fall of 2009. Committee work has included researching developmentally appropriate curricula and tools for program evaluation, developing polices and procedures, designing forms for use in registration, etc.  Altoona’s collaborative vision was enhanced as several district staff and child care center directors visited child care centers in other communities.  District staff have also attended the Wisconsin Early Childhood and Care Conference, the International DEC Conference, and the Preschool Options/LINKS Training. Child care partners have attended a Creative Curriculum inservice, and have been invited to attend all pertinent CESA trainings. Plans are being formulated to host a WMELS training for the Altoona preschool/child care community.      Preschool options in Altoona will be increased as community-based 4 year-old kindergarten is implemented with the start of the 2009-10 school year. In order to serve preschool children in a variety of least restrictive environments, dialogues were begun with Head Start and four other community partners. The outcome is that contracts with these sites have been formalized. Furthermore, the district Early Childhood Special Education Teacher and Speech/Language Pathologist are building relationships with these community partners, and have begun to discuss programming.  The school board and community have provided input and have been informed throughout the interagency planning process.

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Ruth_Voight YaBB Newbies Posts: 4

Monticello Schools Reply #3 - 01/22/09 at 15:27:31   Monticello spent the first part of the school year planning before reaching out to community.  We have scheduled a PreSchool Planning Meeting in February  inviting representatives from Head Start, Birth to Three, community service providers, and parents as well the general public to participate in an initial forum to create a community council.     School staff  - the 4Kg teacher, ECSE teacher and the Speech & Language Therapist will attend Beyond the Pizza Night workshop at Cesa 2 in January and March.  (We currently host a family fun night each semester for 4K students and family, but hope to increase those nights to quarterly).  I anticipate the workshops on 1/30 and 3/17 will help us build family involvement and improve the quality of our evening event.   4K screening is planned for late February; we anticipate moving to a Child Development Days format in 2009-10.  There is a workshop sponsored by CESA 6 in Madison regarding Child Development Days we hope to attend with representatives from other agencies.   We were unable to participate the LINKS training in January, but are hoping there is another opportunity this spring or fall.   Ruth R. Voight Pupil Services/Special Education Director Monticello Schools Monticello, WI  53570

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Cathy_Weis YaBB Newbies Posts: 5

Elmbrook Schools Reply #4 - 01/23/09 at 11:33:30   This year, Elmbrook Schools continues itinerant ECSE support in community preschools. We currently provide services in 4 preschools. Four afternoons/week, we have a EC/Speech and Language community classroom at a local day care center. Typically developing peers are sometimes integrated into classroom activities, although not as often as we would like. Afternoons are a harder time to get peers who are not resting!   New this year is the planning and implementing of Playgroups. Children who do not have opportunities to be with typical developing peers attend with a parent. Speech and Language and EC teachers run the group. The group does not change during each session. We meet 5-6 times. Teachers model strategies for parents to use at home. We have learned many things and have made changes to our second semester session. We meet every week instead of every other. Some kiddos bring a playmate with them. We have also expanded our peers by using recently dismissed kids from our Itinerant Speech program. They are providing excellent play models!   Our much anticipated LINKS training was canceled due to the two days of extremely frigid weather!!! We are attending as a department at the rescheduled training in April and look forward to the discussion. An EC teacher is going to attend some workshops to begin to explore the idea of using Creative Curriculum.  CESA #1 has been very helpful-thanks Cindy! We recently spent an afternoon talking standardized assessment and are looking at updating district materials.   Efforts to plan a WMELS training for community providers is not going so well. I do not know why we have had trouble getting a date set. We do have interest. An informal night of brainstorming with community providers is in the works.   As an outreach of our assessment discussion, we are looking at our entire screening/referral/placement procedures! One goal is to make it more family friendy!   Cathy Weis Preschool Options Coordinator Elmbrook Schools

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Kaye_Yahn YaBB Newbies Posts: 3

Hamilton School District Reply #5 - 02/12/09 at 12:59:56   In the Pre-school Options program for the Hamilton School District, we have again been following our grant plan rather well.  This means that our two EC teachers of three-year olds have been in the community at day-care centers providing information and support.  They have also been supporting parents at home.  They have visited districts that have history in the pre-school options program and returned with information to share with our planning group.  We have had guest speakers attend meetings providing information regarding daycare inservice opportunities and “News You Can Use” for young children.  They provided additional information regarding early childhood from their organizations.   Our Pre-school Options Professional Learning Community (PLC) has met several times this year to review and act upon our strategic plan developed last spring.  We are developing a resource collection of articles for use and distribution with parents.  We have developed and refined our plan to provide an inservice for district areas day care centers.  This seminar evening will be held in April and will provide language acquisition, play, and “make-it and take-it” components for day care employees.     Coming in March will be our book share.  Committee members have read one of two books and will participate in a jig-saw activity which will provide all members with salient points developed by the authors of the books studied by the group.  The two books being read and studied are The New language of Toys: Teaching Communication Skills to Children with Special Needs, and Coaching Families and Colleagues in Early Childhood.   Membership of this Pre-school Options group consists of two teachers of special needs children, four teachers of children who are typically developing children, a diagnostic teacher, a speech and language pathologist, two day care directors, one birth-to-three program administrator, one parent of a child with special needs and two administrators from the school district.  The work of the committee is good and we are learning and advancing change within our district.   Submitted by Margaret Tackes, Principal, Willow Springs Learning Center, and Mardi Freeman, Supervisor of Special Services Hamilton School District

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nitscric YaBB Newbies Posts: 2

Two Rivers Public Schools Reply #6 - 02/24/09 at 15:59:23   Mid-year Progress Report for Planning Grants Two Rivers Public Schools.       The Two Rivers School District continues to be part of the Port Cities Early Childhood Planning Council (PCECPC) which is a consortium effort between the Two Rivers School District and the Manitowoc School District.  The Planning Council meets at least quarterly and the Executive Committee of the PCECPC meets monthly to plan training activities, discuss common needs, and to program progress.  The PCECPC has conducted/scheduled a number of training activities for early childhood providers including: Conscious Discipline, Creative Curriculum, LINKS training, and ELL strategies.     Four year old early childhood special education students are currently being serviced in a 4K classroom that consists of 50% special needs children and 50% non-special needs children. Other special needs students have been placed in the 4K Head Start program and speech needs are met at several of the 4K sites.  Planning sessions need to be scheduled in order to determine how pre-school options can be further promoted during the 2009-10 school year.  The district has seen a large number of new early childhood placements; which will result in a large number of special needs 4-year-olds for the 2009-10 school year.  Meeting the needs will be a challenge.  It is our intent to visit other school districts that have a strong pre-school options component to learn program management strategies.

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Lois_Meinking YaBB Newbies Posts: 1

Bangor Early Learning Collaborative Council Reply #7 - 03/19/09 at 09:13:47   The Bangor Early Learning Collaborative Council has met effectively over the course of the school year.  They developed the 4-Year-Old-Kindergarten vision and mission statements which were approved by the school board.  They have collaborated to provide family involvement activities.  The CESA #4 Early Education Consultant has provided valuable guidance to the council.   The 4K teacher, a special education teacher, and their assistants attended a week long training session on working with young children and childhood behaviors.  Two members of the early learning collaborative council attended training in the implementation of the creative curriculum for preschool with Debra Pacchiano, Ph.D.  As grant coordinator I attended the fall meeting, "Orientation to Planning Minigrants."   Lois Meinking Elementary Principal and Curriculum Coordinator School District of Bangor P.O. Box 99 Bangor, WI  54614   Phone:  608-486-5206

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John_Eyerly YaBB Newbies Posts: 1

School District of Ashland Reply #8 - 03/19/09 at 14:53:33   This report is submitted by John Eyerly, Director of Pupil Services, School District of Ashland:Mid-Year Progress Report-School District of Ashland   Our Community Pre-School Options Committee has formally met 4 times with at least 1 more meeting planned prior to the end of the school year. We have worked closely with Sue Erickson and Stephanie St. Germain on this project. Sue Albert was our presenter at the 11/10/09 meeting. This was a very helpful/ informative meeting that was well attended with members of Bad River Head Start and Family Forum Head Start in attendance.  Sue led the group with a discussion about the rationale of a change in delivery system, communication, and next steps in the process. On December, 2008 we began our ''new pre-school option model" of 3 days of class at Lake Superior Primary School and 2 days of Itinerant service provided to the families and community by the pre-school teacher. We met as a local group on 2/20/09 to discuss concerns and issues. On 3/9/09 Mary Joslin presented to the group on communication and working with each other in this new delivery model. Mary also provided so me guidance and direction regarding IEP writing and IEP meeting facilitation. We have started a ''book discussion group " as a means to increase awareness and understanding of preschool issues. We have started with the book ''Families and Colleagues in Early Childhood"  by Hanft, Rush and Sheldon.

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jfree YaBB Newbies Posts: 4

Marathon Elementary School District Reply #9 - 03/24/09 at 11:07:06   Marathon Elementary School District's Implementation Grant and the conferences attended to date:   Grant Related Workshops/Conferences: Fall Grant Meeting (October) WMELS Training (Dec.) Preserving Early Childhood (March)   Marathon Elementary School District – Mid Year Preschool Options Grant Report March 2009 Joy Free, EC Teacher/Grant Committee Facilitator   In meeting the goals for our planning grant, as well as the goals for EC-5K Marathon School District and community staff have been involved in the following activities:  building level collaborative meetings (September-current), model program on-site visits at AC Kiefer Center-Wausau School District and Head Start and 4K sites in Green Bay School District (December and March), WMELS training (CESA #9 - Dec.), and planning committee members attending the Preserving EC conference in Appleton (March).  As a result of these activities, our school district has asked for representation from the committee to be a part of the district's long range planning committee which includes parents, businesses, community leaders and educators to address areas of student learning.  The grant committee will work with this task force to address how the district can increase collaborative programming at the EC-5K level for students with disabilities within the physical and instructional environment, and, recommend best practices regarding half day vs. full day programming for 4K students.  These activities to date address our goal to have the active involvement of teachers, administrators, parents and key stakeholders to allow for flexible fiscal and administrative procedures and develop best practices for early learning programming for students and families of the community of Marathon.

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Cashton YaBB Newbies Posts: 4

Cashton Elementary School Reply #10 - 04/06/09 at 09:11:29   Additional information to be reported is the attendance by two teachers of four-year-kindergarten at the Creative Curriculum Workshop on September 18 & 19, 2008 in LaCrosse.   Cashton School District Preschool Planning Grant Mid-Year Progress Report March 30, 2009   Since obtaining the grant we formed a collaborative preschool council consisting of representatives from the school district (principal, special education coordinator, 4 year old kindergarten teacher, and early childhood teacher), child care facility, county Birth to Three program, Head Start, community library, community health care center, Family Resource Center, and parents.  We have met to discuss current opportunities for preschool children in the community and define the need for other opportunities.   We identified the need to develop playgroups in the Cashton community.  Ultimately we would like to utilize that setting as a possible option through which to deliver special education services to early childhood students which might be a more natural environment rather than our typical placement for early childhood special education students being integrated into the 4 year old kindergarten program.  In that light we have investigated playgroups in surrounding communities as well as participated in a presentation by Ruth Reinl regarding play groups.  We also visited an established play group at the Family Resource Center in a neighboring community.  The collaborative preschool council is supportive of the development of a playgroup and will continue the discussion of an appropriate location for the playgroup and how to staff it, as well as what needs we have for supplies and materials as we hope to implement it in the fall of 2009.

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tpaavola YaBB Newbies Posts: 2

Cochrane-Fountain City Schools Reply #11 - 04/14/09 at 08:29:29   Cochrane-Fountain City Schools has continued to build on the relationships within the district with Birth to Three, Headstart and private Daycare providers.  We have held three planning meetings so far, with our fourth to come on April 20th.  Our team provided trainings in February and March in CSEFL with the assistance of trainers from CESA 4 to help in the identification and remediation of problem behaviors.  Approximately 30 persons attended each training session and included personnel from other schools, early childhood providers and parents. We have planned a parent-child event to be held at the end of April with the assistance of Headstart to talk about gardening and the benefits to parent-child relationships and communication development.  We also continue to look at options for providing services to students in our district through our planning meetings.

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North_Crawford YaBB Newbies Posts: 1

North Crawford School District Reply #12 - 05/11/09 at 10:32:17   The North Crawford School District has explored a day care facility on campus.  After visiting two different programs currently in other districts and securing bids on remodeling our building to meet requirements, the council has decided to take another direction if the grant is distributed to us next year for implementaion phase.  Costs were extremely high and far above the reach of this grant and participants.     We held three meetings this year.  Two with a representative from the grant and school members.  One large council meeting to establish a collaborative group.  Included were representatives from; day care, headstart, special education, regular education, school administration, parents and our grant contact person, Martha Hestad.  Invited but unable to attend were additional daycare providers, Crawford daycare licensing agent, and our birth to three representative.   We discussed many needed community options for our children's early learning needs.  We decided to contact the Families and Learning agency to present seminars to parents and we will establish a lending library for community parents, grandparents, and guardians of young children.  This would include books, educational toys and resource materials for parents.   Our second council meeting is scheduled for May 15, 2009.

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jgreget YaBB Newbies Posts: 2

Medford Area Public School District Reply #13 - 07/10/09 at 15:05:21   The Medford Area Public School District in collaboration with the Taylor County Early Childhood Sub-Committee is making successful gains at the mid year point.  Our regular education pre-kindergarten teachers, early childhood special education teacher, speech and language pathologist, and myself attended the Preschool Options and the IEP meeting at CESA 10.  This information and planning time is helping us prepare for implementing a Preschool Options model for our early education children with disabilities in their least restrictive environment.  This information was further discussed and shared in school staff meetings and at Taylor County Early Childhood Sub-Committee meetings.       The Taylor County Playgroup which is a collaboration between Taylor County Parent Resource Center, UW Extension, Taylor County Birth to Three, and the school district continues to meet 2x per month.  These meetings offer children between birth to 4 years of age an opportunity to play together.  Parents have the opportunity to ask questions and learn strategies from the organizations.     Medford Area Public School District has offered two Families Being Involved workshops on the district early release days when early education children are not in school.  These have been held at the Medford Public Library.  Children participated in activities organized by the Library.  Parents receive educational training from our four year old kindergarten teachers and early childhood special education teachers.  There is opportunity for parents and children to interact together.  Children also received a library card and checked out books and videos.       Taylor County Birth to Three organized a transition planning meeting with Medford School District, Rib Lake School District, and Gilman School District.  We focused on writing an Interagency Agreement meeting.

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tbrecklin YaBB Newbies Posts: 2

Brown Deer School Board Reply #14 - 07/20/09 at 10:29:57   Brown Deer experienced a successful start to its 4K program in September, 2009.  A lot of thoughtful planning preceded the start date. First of all, district teachers and administrators attended a 4K conference in Madison in March of 2008. We also visited local day-care providers and observed 4K classrooms in the Milwaukee area.  Next, the district created a 4K Task Force which included 25 individuals from the Brown Deer school community.  This group included prospective 4K parents, 5K teachers, special education teachers, early childhood specialists, local day-care and 4K providers,  a retired Brown Deer Health Department nurse, members of the Brown Deer School Board, the Superintendent, Director of Instruction, and Elementary Principal. The task force created a mission statement and belief statement, and embraced WMELS as key to a sound program.  The group presented its work to the Board of Education and recommended the implementation of a collaborative approach to 4K programming within the district.  The board approved four half-day 4K sections with an anticpated enrollment of approximately 80 students.  Two of the sections enabled parents to easily take advantage of  the wrap around care option offered through our collaborative partner,  the Rite-Hite YMCA.  At mid-year we were still working on securing WMELS training and other training opportunitities for our stafff.

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